The reporting of Traits, Treatment and Germplasm is a difficult and cumbersome process for manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Each Germplasm manufacturer (defined as Company who has the rights to specific germplasm) has different ways that they want the reporting and the definition of terms varies between manufacturers. Manufacturers reporting to other manufacturers have not always been consistent or timely. In addition, distributors and retailers need to report one single sale to multiple manufacturers. Having the technology to complete the multiple reporting has been a barrier.

By standardizing the format, process and mechanism of how trait, treatment and germplasm is reported to manufacturers will require less labor intensive processes and a more consistent and timely reporting of the information for both manufacturers and distributors/retailers.

Updates

This project is sponsored by the Seed Council to electronically report germplasm, royalty traits and seed treatment from the buyers to the sellers in a standardized format. We are getting close to complete the Phase 1 portion of this project. We have completed a draft message to report the germplasm and trait royalties. We decided we will use the current ProductMovementReport message for the seed treatment reporting. The following companies have been working on the phase 1 (design): AgData; Bayer CropScience; Crop Production Services, Dow AgroSciences, GROWMARK, Inc.; Monsanto Company; Southern States Cooperative; Syngenta Seed; and Wilbur Ellis Company. We have now completed all of the work for the original Phase 1 planned. The Board did decide in January to expand the scope of Phase 1 to include a flatfile/CSV file to be designed for the reporting of the Germplasm and Trait Reporting. That task is in progress, and hopefully will be completed by the end of the quarter. A couple of the manufacturers (Monsanto and Syngenta) have determined they are not going to continue forward in Phase 2. The board is currently determining the next steps for this project.